Let's first just revel in the phenomenal first half of this Chiefs offense. Five possessions, five touchdowns. One of those touchdowns was a tremendous Mahomes scramble concluded with a bullet strike to Chris Conley in the back corner of the end zone. As Conley pulled in the pass the TV announcer exclaimed "Are you kidding me?!" This was the third touchdown of that five touchdown first-half performance.
The last touchdown of that half came at the end of a tremendous drive featuring amazing catches by Ware, Williams, and Kelce who grasped the ball with one-hand. The touchdown was a pass to Watkins who powered his way into the end zone. It was beautiful.
We should indeed marvel at it all -- wonderfully splendidly marvelous.
Then there is our defense.
About halfway through the 3rd quarter I thought, hmm, I'm going to start noting all the fine defensive plays we make. See how many we actually make. Here's what I wrote:
- Nnadi and Ragland stop runner for no gain.
- Bailey and Ragland stop runner for no gain.
- Bailey sack with 49ers in red zone and us holding a mere 14-point lead.
- Houston sack on the next play.
That's it. That is really all I could write about our defense. Our D really looked like butter as the 49ers just rammed the ball down our throats on the ground. Here, look at this -- 1st half score: 35-10 Chiefs. 2nd half score: 17-3 49ers.
With about 5 or 6 minutes left their starting QB got hurt, and they put in their backup. He promptly threw a TD pass to cut the lead to a single score, but a very questionable offensive pass interference call negated it. That call essentially secured the win for us because on the next possession Kareem Hunt and our O-line did decently enough running the ball to close it out.
We also got bailed out by a ton of 49ers penalties, so, yeah...
Really it is simple. We have no push at the line. We have poor pursuit. We miss tackles all over the place. Our smallish defenders are getting manhandled at the point of attack. Every 4th or 5th play we have some gruesomely ugly blown coverage. The announcers said at one point that defensive coordinator Bob Sutton will get it all cleaned up, that we're getting better.
Ha.
I don't believe it. It's just not happening, at least without Eric Berry in there. I mean, seriously, we cannot acquire Earl Thomas soon enough.
Watching Patrick Mahomes run this offense with all those weapons is pure joy.
The defense...
Very very scary. We all knew this would be the case, but it doesn't make it any less scary.
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